


Imprisoned

by wastefulreverie



Series: PhannieMay Shots 2018 [23]
Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Angst, Fentonworks, Gen, Imprisonment, imprisoned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-31
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-10-01 01:29:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17234870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wastefulreverie/pseuds/wastefulreverie
Summary: Waking up in the FentonWorks Lab is never a good sign, especially when Maddie and Jack are staring you down like you're less than an animal.





	Imprisoned

Maybe I was used to waking up with a pain at the back of my head, but the part where I was chained up in the FentonWorks basement was new. I knew the layout of the lab well enough to recognize where I was after a few moments to allow myself to process my surroundings. After it occurred to me _where_ I was, then I allowed myself to panic because _I can't remember how I got here and that's definitely not a good sign, is it?_

What had I been doing before this? I was at school... and then I got a bad grade on my test, like usual... and then I went to lunch and... there was a ghost attack? That had to be right, wasn't it? Yeah, there was a ghost attack during lunch, so I went and changed and then....

Jack and Maddie started shooting at me from the ground. Once I realized they were really shooting at me to incapacitate, I tried dodging, but it wasn't really helpful. One of their shots grazed me, and caused me to crash about fifty feet onto a patch of grass. I laid there for a while, and everything was just so cloudy and then... something stabbed my arm, which meant that was probably some kind of drug. 

Alright, so they drugged me and brought me to their lab. That doesn't just scream _'I'm totally going to die!'_ But, I might as well give them the benefit of the doubt, after all. I know that Jack and Maddie can be good people when they don't have their heads up their asses about ghosts all the time.

Once I mustered enough energy, I tried to resist my chains, which were connected to the wall behind me. Despite how much I tried to force myself out of them, the chains still dug tightly into my wrists, indicating that struggling wasn't working at all. I also suddenly noticed that when I passed out, I remained transformed, which was atypical, but incredibly fortunate. I couldn't afford an identity reveal right now, no matter how sketchy the current situation was.

“Jack honey,” I could hear Maddie's voice, but I couldn't see her anywhere, “it's awake.”

“Oh, great,” replied the overenthusiastic man, “I can't wait to ask it some questions!”

I frowned at the rude usage of 'it' as my pronoun. I was literally _right_ here, they could at least act like they weren't talking about me like I was some kind of inanimate object. 

My critical musing was interrupted when Jack leaped out from beside me and grabbed the chains that were shackled to my hands. It was raised about an inch in the air, bringing my face to his. “Hello,” he said, before letting my chains drop. My butt hit the floor unceremoniously and I hissed in discomfort, remembering the long fall I took earlier. Jack ignored my apparent pain and looked at me thoughtfully. “You know, you make a very convincing act, I'll give you that.”

“Act?” I asked. “What act?”

“That you're in pain,” Maddie offered. “That you actually care about the welfare about this town and it's citizens. That you're like _us_ ,” she finished distastefully.

I could only blink incomprehensibly in response, “I'm sorry. What?” I paused to iterate my point. “Like, what does that mean exactly?”

“You've been pretending to be Amity's hero,” Jack said bluntly. “But you're not. You're just a fraud who get's... something, from acting like you care. But you don't care, because you're mentally incapable of such diverse emotions. We know what you are. Don't you get it, that you can finally drop the silly charade? You can't fool us Fentons.”

I had no idea what they were talking about, but it sounded like they knew something I didn't at the moment. Apparently they were under the assumption that I didn't actually care, and was some emotionless actor who only hunted ghosts for attention. I don't know what I did recently to drive them to this notion, but whatever suddenly triggered them had definitely come out of the blue. It was a blind-sighted assumption, and it made me mad that they would jump to conclusions and tie me up before asking me my side of the story. My fury expanded within me, combined with my frustration from lack of control over my situation. 

“Who're you to say that I can't care about Amity Park?” I settled on asking, defensively. “You don't know anything about me! And what gives you the right to lock me up? I have rights, now let me free!”

Maddie snorted, “Please, you have no rights here.”

I narrowed my eyes, making sure that my anger was visible in my expression. Who the hell did she think she was? First, she drugged and kidnapped me, and then she reduces me to nothing more than some objectified prisoner? As Amity Park's protector, I wasn't going to stand for that disrespect so I spoke clearly. “Say that to my face,” I challenged with soft rage. She wasn't going to suppress me. 

Maddie grinned, aware of my anger, but disinterested. “You have no rights!” she declared, again.

What a... _bitch_.

“Why are you doing this to me?” I asked, taking a different approach with my inquiry.

“Well, isn't that obvious?” Jack asked. “You're a threat to Amity Park, so we've captured you here for detainment and potential study.”

I scowled, failing to refrain from making a sarcastic remark. “Oh, yeah, like your main defense against the ghosts is Amity's biggest 'threat'.”

“I wouldn't say you're the biggest threat out there,” Maddie countered, “but you're definitely one of them. You've been acting like you're human, when you're not.” She turned around and thoughtlessly trailed her fingers over a nearby invention. “All you are is just a danger to everyone around you, which is why after we experiment on you, we're going to dispose of you.”

My eyes widened. Suddenly this situation had gone from irritating to a lot more serious than I had realized. They were talking about legitimate experimenting. On me? And they were actually for real about it? Woah, woah, woah this _wasn't good. I had to get out of here now and – holy crap they're going to kill me and I still don't know why_.

“That doesn't explain why you're doing this, though!” I protested. “You're talking about murder! Why would you even want to experiment on me? That's disgusting!”

They weren't supposed to be doing this to _me._ Jack and Maddie shared a disbelieving look before turning back to explain to me like I was some sort of dumb child.

“Because you're a ghost, and that's a good enough reason,” Maddie crossed her arms. “You have no idea how much data we can pull from an ecto-entity like you.”

My mind reeled. They thought I was a ghost, like an actual dead full ghost! Of course, that explained everything. Somehow they had gotten it in their heads, and honestly, how could I blame them? From their perspective, there were many obvious indicators that I looked like some sort of ghost, but there was also the very clear part of me that was human. If I could tell them the truth, show them that they were wrong, then they'd realize their mistake. They'd realize that I'm not some lab rat! That I'm _human_ and definitely not some heartless ghost.

I closed my eyes to focus and gave the mental command to reverse my transformation, to go back to just regular human me. It wouldn't budge. I was trapped in this form, for some unknown reason, and in my current predicament, there wasn't much else I could do to change. Maybe the drug they gave me prevented me from going back to normal, or maybe something got hurt when I fell and this was some sort of self-preservation mode. Whatever it was, I was stuck the way I was.

My only remaining option: beg and hope they believed me.

_ (I don't wanna die I don't wanna die I don't wanna) _

“I – I'm not a ghost!” I tried to explain. “I mean, sure, it might look like it from a certain angle and I know I fight the other ghosts, but I... I'm human! I swear! I'd change back right now if I could, but under this exterior is just a regular teenager trying to help this town! Please, please believe me. I don't want to be experimented on!”

Jack's gaze was oddly cold and calculating for the usually lighthearted man. “Then explain how you have an ectosignature.”

I gulped in fear. That question completely caught me off guard. How could I explain that?

“It's an inadequate liar,” Maddie decided. “It talks too much, too. With a voice like that, we'll definitely have to use a gag for the experiments. Don't you agree, Jack?”

“Probably, for the best,” Jack nodded. His eyes gleamed with unparalleled excitement. “I can't wait to tear it apart molecule by molecule.”

_God_ , _please tell me this isn't happening!_

There was a noise. Not from Jack or Maddie, but somewhere upstairs, inside FentonWorks. I flinched against my chains, before realizing what that meant, allowing a spark of hope to ignite within my chest.

Now someone was coming down the stairs – could it be? Was I being rescued from the horrifying clutches of Jack and Maddie and their really _not so fun_ obsession with tearing things apart from the inside? I took a deep breath in anticipation and almost exploded in relief when the new figure made itself known.

Danny Fenton appeared at the bottom of the stairwell, looked around the lab questioningly, and turned to his parents with a _really_ confused frown. “Mom... Dad...? Why do you have the Red Huntress tied up in the lab?”

Maddie and Jack turned away from me and their expressions mellowed.

“Oh, hey sweetie,” Maddie said. “Don't worry about that. Your father and I were doing ectoplasmic scans of your school earlier today, and we discovered that the Red Huntress has an ectosignature, meaning she must be a ghost! It's so disappointing, since we thought she was such a good human hunter. Turns out it's just another fake 'hero', like Phantom.”

“Mom,” Danny said slowly, “I think you _really_ screwed up. The Red Huntress _is_ human.”

I think at that point I would've cried. Danny didn't believe his parents for a second and stood up for me instead. There was no way they were going to be able to experiment on me now. 

“Don't be silly, Danno,” Jack said. “We know a ghost when we see one!”

Danny crossed his arms skeptically as if he was having his own ironic epiphany, but his facial expression instantly neutralized and he yielded to his parents. 

“You said you scanned an ectosignature from her?” Danny asked, tentatively attempting to explain. “Well, that's not from her. That's from her suit itself. It was made by a ghost, so it uses a ghost's ectosignature to function – but she's completely, one-hundred percent human underneath.”

His explanation was surprisingly accurate for someone who should know little to nothing about me as the Red Huntress, but I couldn't complain. He was right, and what the Fenton parents needed was the truth. Because even I told them everything, weren't going to believe me. Their son on the other hand... they'd trust him in an instant. 

“Wait...” Jack said, understanding dawning on him, “so that's not a ghost? It's a girl. We tied up some random girl instead of a ghost?”

“Uh huh,” I confirmed, bitterly. “And I tried telling you I was human, but you didn't listen. So, may I please be let go now?”

“We – we imprisoned a human...?” Maddie whispered, almost broken. “How'd we-?”

“I'll get you out of there,” Danny was weirdly the calmest person in the room. I don't know how that boy did it, having to put up with all his parents' horribly reckless mistakes, like almost dissecting one of his classmates. Well, technically Danny didn't know that I was his classmate, but still. It was strange how unaffected by this he was.

He was very accurate with getting me out of my chains, almost like it was a practiced action. He stared at me sympathetically and whispered, “I'm sorry my parents dragged you into this, Val.”

My blood ran cold. How did he-?

“You should go now, we can talk about this later. I promise,” he said, looking back at his parents behind him.

Too stupefied to speak, I managed to re-summon my jet-sled, and flew out through the Specter Speeder tunnel to the outside. Jack and Maddie didn't try to protest my exit, and I didn't look back at them at all when I left. I'd be okay if I never saw either of their faces again, considering what they had almost been prepared to do to me because they underestimated how my armor worked. Luckily, I had a savior who already knew everything, somehow.

That was the other thing; I didn't know how Danny knew my secret, but I supposed it was probably for the better. It didn't make me feel secure knowing that my ex-boyfriend knew about my ghost hunting activities, but I'm glad he was there for me when his parents had almost experimented on me because they thought I was a ghost....

Funny how life works out sometimes, isn't it?

 

**Author's Note:**

> Bet that hurt, didn't it?


End file.
